


Ceremony

by darklittlestories



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard in Exile, FrostMaster if you want, Implied only in the past, M/M, New King Thor, Norse Bro Feels, Post-Ragnarok, Reluctant King!Thor, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Varys!Loki, maybe a ratings upgrade IDK, watch for new tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-01-30 03:00:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12644787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklittlestories/pseuds/darklittlestories
Summary: A realm in exile and a family shattered, the brothers find that their past is still a strong foundation on which to build.





	1. A Realm in Exile

**Author's Note:**

> What WIPs? SHUT UP, guilt. I have exactly one thing on my brain, and it's Ragnariffic. Thanks as ever to [ravenbringlight](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight) for the wonderful edits:D I have a [Tumblr here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darklittlestories).

The voyage is long, and though there are a great many duties requiring his attention, Thor spends too much of time pacing in his rooms—the chambers of the king, the doors of which are flanked by the proud stance of four Einherjar. Only ten of the scores of his homeland’s elite guard yet remain.  
  
His homeland: One of seemingly innumerable voids that reside in him now.   
  
Three of his most cherished companions, slain.   
Both parents gone to stardust.   
Banner’s genius mind trapped in the Hulk’s form.   
A sister he’d known only on the field of battle.   
His right eye.   
  
And Mjolnir, ever-present weight both anchoring him to the soil and carrying him through sky, gone from his belt, his hand, his heart.   
  
That Loki remains is often the only thing bearing Thor upright.

In the evenings that the king is most troubled, shimmering green runes will appear on the wall. Thor thinks, _Enter,_ and his brother steps through the wall. The first time, it was with a mocking bow. The next, with no warning and a smirk at Thor’s aimless pacing. Now he arrives with a shy smile just visible at the corners of his lips.   
  
They drink from crystal decanters and each time Thor sees Loki’s fingers close on the stopper to pour them each a drink, his heart floods with warmth. The memory of that first shared embrace after so very long at odds fortifies him more than the various liquors Loki serves them. They toast their fallen comrades, share stories of their parents during the boys’ youth, and Loki amuses Thor with shocking stories of Sakaar. Thor doubts their veracity, for his brother was there only weeks.   
  
And because it’s Loki.

But his company never fails to leave Thor with a lingering smile after he has gone.   
  
One evening Loki laughs at Thor, who impersonates the differences in reactions between Banner and the Valkyrie when Thor had told them of the little prank Loki had played upon him, how it had been welcome to hear a warrior’s laugh even as he’d been amused with Banner’s nervous laughter. Loki is tipsy, and some of the turquoise liquor sloshes over his glass as he giggles.   
  
He grows serious, then, and tells Thor the warrior is called Brunnhilde, but that her memories are painful. He urges Thor to give her time, to let her open to them and to their people slowly.

Thor is in awe of Loki’s seidr, still expanding even now. But then Thor too is embracing his own powers in a new way. Loki’s care (yes, in his cups, but still) for the Valkyrie impresses Thor.

He’d asked Loki’s aid in refining his control over lightning and they’ve been working together within a cage-like enclosure of Loki’s magic. Thor’s able now to send little sparks that do nothing more than make the fine hairs on Loki’s arms stand out from his body and cause a tiny gasp sucked in through Loki’s teeth.  
  
When Loki reinforces the cage with extra layers, Thor can step inside and work up from that little frisson of energy to a blinding explosion of light. The shine of pride on Loki’s face when he’d accomplished that mastery had given Thor the courage finally to ask his brother’s service as the High Councillor to the King.

The terse nod of Loki’s reply belies the palpable emotional weight. When he meets Thor’s eye, Loki’s contain unshed tears.   
  
The governance of the realm in exile is reknitting in fits and starts. Loki and Heimdall have each separately suggested a formal investiture of Thor as the King of Asgard and Protector of the Realms.   
  
Thor has put them off for a turn of the moon globes Loki’s  fashioned to track time. He hasn’t the stomach, not without his father solemnly presiding, nor Frigga with her fond, exasperated look etched into his mind from his almost-crowning. He doesn’t even have his hammer to hold aloft.

It all evokes bitter memories of his first failed coronation and the ruination that followed. His helm and the very treasury of Asgard are lost, and he can’t be bothered with formalities when there are nearly two thousand mouths hungry for food, healing, and some new order to their lives.

Now, during what the people have determined is day aboard the vessel, Thor begins to make himself very busy. He sets aside sparring and training areas and buys the Valkyrie’s favor with the promise of unlimited access to the king’s stores of Sakaari fire lager and dwarven whiskey in the evenings in exchange for her overseeing the continued training of the soldiers. He assigns Heimdall the task of finding those best to act as teachers, healers, and other necessary jobs.  
  
During these days, Thor rules his people and tries not to count them. They are so few now, but the close quarters give Thor hope (and more than a few Loki-inspired vivid ideas) that new babes will arrive later in this spin of the star globes. Thor attends them, settles what he can and seeks Loki’s counsel when needed.   
  
In the appointed evenings, Heimdall teaches the young ones and the uneducated adults how the ship navigates with and through the stars and about the galaxies and systems they pass.   
  
Several times, Thor nearly rounds a corner and stops short upon hearing Loki’s unmistakeable smooth voice, low and conspiratorial and telling rapt groups of children the sagas of the Aesir, with new childlike rhyme schemes.   
  
Thor, grown contemplative at long last, and perhaps he could even call it wise, never mentions the storytelling to Loki. He knows Loki would stop and it gives Thor much pleasure to listen quietly and then softly pad backward along the hall to wait his private audience with the ship’s master storyteller.


	2. Secrets

Each night, Loki sends the children back to their families—those intact and the foster families coalescing amongst the survivors. When the youngest have tottered off to bed he finds the wild gang of adolescents that has clustered around a trio of clever little thieves.  
  
He spies them tittering in the shadows beneath an unsightly overhanging bit of the rugged ship. He makes two copies and the three Lokis speak in unison.   
  
“Rat King,” he begins conversationally, and the clique jumps at the appearance of the suddenly-visible prince as one mass. It’s why he’d named them for a tangled mess of rats. “Why is it you persist in ignoring my warnings about discretion?”   
  
Axl and Mikkel being to speak over each other but even the would-be heads of the gang hush when three Lokis put three imperious index fingers to their lips.   
  
“Every. Single. Evening,” Loki has the attention of the group, and the copies step neatly together and then there is just Loki, and thirteen pairs of wide eyes are fixed on him. “Every evening I find you,” he continues, and he begins to stalk, watching with concealed amusement as they track him like kits fixed on prey.

“I find you,” Loki goes on, “Not because I possess Heimdall’s sight or enchanted looking glasses. I find you,” and he pauses for dramatic effect, “because you make a din the king himself could hear from his chamber.”

Syn, the smallest of the ringleaders, huffs as if the fact that Loki’s brother is the king is utterly mundane.

“We weren’t _being_  loud, Prince Lo—“

He stops her short.

“I’m not sending you to bed for warmed milk, Sneak. I am trying to teach you. To nurture your innate talent. Tell me what you’ve heard and I’ll give you the last bit of the coin-silencing charm.”  
  
And like most nights, the Rat King wild ones tell the king’s adviser what they’ve heard, as the nobles and warriors and commoners all share a blind spot for skinny, dirty children listening at the edges of conversation. Then Loki would teach them some harmless trick, like quieting the telltale clink of coins in a fat purse as it was lifted from the belt of some overstuffed lord. Heimdall would see they made their way to comfortable beds and hold his tongue about doing so.

Thus Loki leaves the children each night, and later his brother, to creep into the cavernous bowels of the ark ship. He is unseen by any but Heimdall. An unlikely accomplice, but staying uncloaked does afford Loki two benefits: He’s being aided in his work and also perhaps beginning to regain the Watcher’s trust.

He places his hands on the subtly concealed rune-plate by a nondescript door and it alights with a golden glow of bright glyphs. Silencing the door, he steps through as the heavy metallic bulk slides open. Within, the space is cramped and cluttered with junk items furred with dust. Behind a crate of antiquated tools there is a smaller plate that allows passage to the energy pattern of three people, though Thor doesn’t know yet this place exists.   
  
When the back wall swings wide, Loki walks into the secret armory of Asgard, lit in dim, flickering shapes cast by the handful of fire he’d salvaged of the Eternal Flame.

On the far wall a thick metallic casket is inset into the wall. It would scarcely be visible had he not known it was there. His heart races manically every time he sees it. He’d had to force out through a clenched jaw the request to Heimdall to lock away the Tesseract. Loki cannot open it.  
  
Heimdall assures him no one can, but Loki knows the being who seeks it would happily destroy a universe to reach it.

Using the stone again after so long to board the ark was perhaps one of the most selfish choices he’s made, and those choices are not few. But that is past, and he is here, now. He ignores the itching pull of the accursed thing and with a twist of magic opens a plain wooden chest. Not much call for hiding this.   
  
He can’t move the contents at first, but that initial frustration passes more quickly with each attempt. Kneeling before the simple ash chest, he closes his eyes and listens for the quiet voice of his father. When he opens them again, Loki shakes his fingers, breathes in and out in carefully timed rhythm.   
  
With steadied hands and his mind in sharp focus, he stops pulling and just _opens_.   
  
The smallest bits of broken uru float upward toward his palms like silver-limned dust motes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Syn is a new-to-me goddess! She guards Frigg’s hall, and is associated with defensive refusal, according to [this site](http://norse-mythology.net/lesser-known-norse-goddesses-in-norse-mythology/). Axl & Mikkel are Easter Eggs for Phil & other fans of The Almighty Johnsons.


	3. The Scale of Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote myself right into a slow burn. I can't NOT ship it. OH WELL, you're welcome.

The improvised council room empties, and Thor feels Heimdall’s hand fall on his shoulder. The increased familiarity between them now is just one more strange thing in Thor’s world. He feels as if life is simply happening to him; however much he knows he is actively making decisions and steering the course of the ship and governing his people, he still feels as if he’s being acted upon.   
  
He finds governance, that lovely Midgardian term, a much more comfortable one than ‘rule.’    
  
When he’d shared that with Loki, his brother had smirked then lifted his glass toward Thor, saying quietly, “If you were comfortable with it, Brother, ‘a crown would suit you ill.’”   
  
When Thor remarked that he wore no crown, Loki had merely hummed, and to Thor’s relief didn’t voice again the importance to the people of a coronation.   
  
So far it fits, the idea of governance rather than something so stately as a reign: His kingship manifests in small things. His focus still is on keeping busy. Loki muses that he’s happened into mindfulness, a concept from an ancient religious sect on Midgard that is evidently au courant again. Thor prefers not to label or examine his thinking just now.    
  
“That’s rather the point,” Loki responds, but he lets the conversation drift toward careless things, as they will in these evening conversations as the drinks go down more quickly.    
  
Thor’s amused but unsurprised at the concoctions Loki creates. On Midgard they’re cocktails, and Tony had forced several samples upon him. Those were sweet and sticky, and Thor would drink one and return to beer or ale. Loki’s cocktails are delectations worthy of a potions master. Complex and interesting, but without losing the slight burn of good strong alcohol.    
  
They’ve been increasingly warm and intimate, these talks. They stay centered mostly on the present situation. Thor can’t yet bear to veer much into their past, and Loki seems to agree.

Thor likes to think of himself more as captaining a the ship than being a monarch. He oversees the organization of practicalities. Loki’s prowess with duplicating solid forms is tested (under Idunn’s skeptical eyes) on grain and fruit seeds and found successful enough to attempt on her few remaining apples. Regions are formally set aside for healing chambers, tutoring rooms, and storage spaces. These are further sorted, and Korg manages the task. Thor smiles when his newest brother-in-arms shows him neat rows of gleaming weapons and orderly shelves of spare parts.   
  
One morning he’s dragged away after breaking his fast by the youngling Syn. Thor is charmed by her excitement. It lights up her face and she looks as young as she is for the first time. When she delivers him to a newly decorated door, he startles at the gleam of gold. He hadn’t known there was this much gold on board, much less enough to spare for ornament. But then the door is pulled wide and Loki ushers him in with a deep, overly formal bow.    
  
The room is tall and narrow and contains books, and too much empty space. The books float freely in the air in slowly twirling circular columns. Loki shows him how a gesture near a circle of poetry volumes rotates the books then selects one and offers it to Thor. It is one that had been favored by Frigga. The exact book, in fact, frayed at one edge along the spine by frequent use. 

Loki dips his head just slightly, in that shy new mannerism. His pride and sorrow pierce through Thor, who is surprised to find he has fallen to his knees.    
  
Loki steps toward him, and the door closes quietly behind them. Thor’s arms encircle Loki’s waist and he weeps against his clever brother. He cries for Loki’s beloved books, and for the entire lost library of Asgard. The words of their people, their histories, sagas, and the tomes of magic and science that Loki must mourn far more than Thor. A choked sob escapes Thor’s throat at that, that what grief he feels must be far more acute to Loki.

There are fewer than five hundred books here, but even that many seems a miracle.    
  
He’ll ask, later, how these survived, but now he’s caught in an onslaught of sorrow, of the scale of their loss. Loki sinks down to cup Thor’s face in his hand and rub the tears from his eye. They embrace again and this loss is only bearable to Thor because Loki is here. He tangles his hands in the thick waves of his brother’s hair, thinking of ink and the darkness between the stars.   
  
They rock slowly, tears mingling and grief binding them again as joy had done in their sunny, foolish youth.


	4. Flame-Born

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as usual to raven-brings-light for the A+ editing and hand-holding. <3

Each evening, in the false twilight aboard the ship, Loki takes a meal with his brother. As routine becomes habit becomes ritual, they grow further at ease. Thor feels gradually less reserved in his brother’s company, the familiarity loosening him by degrees. He feels the peace has settled over Loki as well the nights pass, for his wayward brother has changed, too.

Thor tells him this one night after food, drink, and laughter have softened the worry so often written into Loki’s features. 

Loki freezes, the weight of the moment evident in his expression—it seems to be at war with itself, surprise and anger flitting across his eyes like blades to be flung before they open and Thor sees the telling glass of tears.    
  
“I didn’t mean it before,” Thor offers, reaching to take Loki’s hands in his. “Or if I did… I meant only... Damn it, Brother,” and Thor’s crying too now. “You  _ have _ changed, not only since Sakaar, but here.”   
  
He can’t continue but Loki nods as his tears spill over. He allows Thor to grasp his hands a long while. Loki stares at their joined hands and wonders. When did they last hold hands like this and not in the warrior’s clasp? Were they children? Why can’t he recall such simple comfort?   
  
He wonders when he became accustomed to Thor’s face weeping from a single eye.   
  
When had he become accustomed to anything at all? It seems to him that up until the moment Asgard-the-land had died Loki had been flying and fleeing for millenia. Strange then that now, on a great ship hurtling through the stars, he finds comfort and the idea of home.   


* * *

Later, in the seclusion of the hidden room, Loki hones his skill. It becomes easier to quiet his harried mind and focus on the flow of seidr, to see the whorls and looping patterns connecting all things. He listens to its secrets, to the whispered knowledge that he is only now silent enough to hear.    
  
Here he is both Loki and not. He is himself—all his past and present, his mistakes and triumphs woven together. But he sees his awareness of self expand. He observes his ties to others, and how his eschewing of those bonds had previously cut him off from the full movement of magic. He is Loki, Son of Frigga, witnessing the beautiful warp and weft of energy. He is Odin’s son, wisdom-craving and learning how the cunning strands of destiny are knotted, so clever and complex. 

He sees, with tears streaming unnoticed down his face, that his parents chose him, once to be theirs and then again every day in a thousand ways as they guided him. 

His father’s voice speaks to him in this place and Loki sees the paths of choices over millennia that have connected the family and bound the brothers, and the purpose that drove that intent: He sees more than all else that he was brought to Asgard to be Loki, Brother of Thor.    
  
He sees this for the first time without judgment as he is outside himself. He knows now that Thor is just as rightfully attested Thor, Brother of Loki. Loki is no longer a dead moon reflecting a sun. Rather the two of them are twin stars locked in mutual orbit.    
  
He sees the war-weary Odin, his once-eye still weeping warm blood in a frozen land as he cradles a child. Loki sees Odin in that cold temple and knows his father recognized Loki’s being as if they were always family. He knows that Odin saw that the infant Loki would grow alongside his first son and that this was as it should be.

He sees that his and Thor’s fates are so entwined that to separate them is impossible. He accepts what he’s denied his entire life, that the two of them are souls inseparable and that each of their journeys would always have ended and begun again together at Ragnarok.    
  
He sees Thor’s rule begin in battle and loss, and that it could never have been otherwise.    
  
He sees his own mastery of magic bloom with the fire and as he beckoned Surtr back to being.   
  
He hears his father’s words of power: “My sons,” and with that acknowledgment steadying him, he lifts sure hands and moves the shining chunks of uru into the air to hover atop the Eternal Flame. They will have new life, flame-kissed.

The metal glows in ever changing colors in the heated air until it shines as blinding white as Thor’s lightning. It never quite becomes liquid, but it stretches and follows the coaxing of Loki’s hands pulling at it in gentle, dexterous motions.    
  
Tendrils of luminous metal resolve into branching, forking shapes. 

Loki gestures and the mass revolves slowly, a sturdy piece circling around to meet itself—the base of a crown. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just guessing wildly at how many Asgardians are left. One fan resourse says there were only 5,000 people on Asgard, in the comics during (I assume) peacetime. Hela and her green glowy awesome death army killed a LOT.


End file.
